ign consists of two hands holding a tortilla, or maize-cake.

It is well known that botanists have not yet succeeded in identifying,
amongst the native grasses of America, the ancestor of the cultivated
maize-plant. They assert, however, that the development of what is now the
world's largest cereal, from a wild native species, must have required
incalculable time.

It must be admitted that no factor could possibly have more speedily
impressed upon primitive men the benefits of concerted action and of
organization and communal life than the occasional recurrence of a great
and imminent peril which was shared by all alike, and for which there was
but one visible means of escape. It is equally clear that, once a
concerted and united undertaking had been determined upon, some sort of
plan and organization must have naturally evolved itself. The mere
building of such a gigantic structure as the pyramid of Cholula, which may
well have absorbed the energies of several generations of men, or, at all
events that of innumerable workmen, could well have been an abiding and
most powerful factor in establishing their social organization. Its
erection must indeed have marked an epoch in the lives of the inhabitants
of this region, because, during many years it created a bond of common
interest which, of itself, might well have laid the foundation of a
permanent communal life, in which responsibility and labor were equally
distributed. The mere necessity to expend an equal amount of material and
labor upon the building of each side of the pyramid, would naturally lead
to the formation of pathways traced by the feet of the carriers of earth
and stone from different directions, and ultimately to a division of the
workers into four bands, each associated with a different cardinal point.
Practice would demand that each band should be under leadership, and be
divided into those who collected and carried material, and those who
placed it in position, at each side of the pyramid. The necessity for
general supervision and directorship, extending over the four bands of
workers alike, would, of itself, create central rulership upon which would
devolve the duty of enforcing an equal division of labor, which would
create, in turn, some form of systematic routine and rotation. It can thus
be understood how, by slow degrees, each side of the pyramid would become
permanently identified with a cardinal point; and associated with a
division of workme